


Many Hands

by inalasahl



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Community: spn_gabriel_sam, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-22
Updated: 2010-09-22
Packaged: 2017-10-12 16:31:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/126859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inalasahl/pseuds/inalasahl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for <a href="http://tracker-lucifer.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://tracker-lucifer.livejournal.com/"><strong>tracker_lucifer</strong></a> in the <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/spn_gabriel_sam/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/spn_gabriel_sam/"></a><strong>spn_gabriel_sam</strong> ficathon for the prompt "Hunter!Gabriel meets the abomination that would bring hell on earth."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Many Hands

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tracker_lucifer](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=tracker_lucifer).



> For the purposes of this AU, I have altered the timing of some canon events, most noticeably, Sam starts drinking demon blood before Dean goes to hell. Thanks to [](http://llaras.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://llaras.livejournal.com/)**llaras** for the beta.

The small towns are his hunting grounds. Places where dirt roads are in abundance and coyotes or wolves are blamed when a man or a woman is found ripped to shreds by tooth and nail in their own homes. He has no way of knowing whether any particular demon he's exorcised was the one his brother made the deal with. He'd like to think he would know. Demons lie, of course, but they also brag. He'd like to think if he ever encountered the demon that made the deal with his brother, it would tell him. If for no other reason than to torment him with it. Some of them like to taunt him in different ways, describing in excruciating detail just how Luke is faring in hell, but he can't think of that. It's a distraction from the job. It's a simple job really. See them back to hell one by one until the Earth is rid of them, until every family is spared thhe cold seeping numbness Gabriel feels every day. The awful gaping hole that's only ever filled in the immediate seconds after te rogamus audi nos passes his lips, and he has the satisfaction of sending another one of those monsters on its way.

By the time he's 34, it's a rote task. He has no way of knowing whether what he does makes a difference or whether he's baling against the tide. The demons get out of hell somehow, and they hop bodies like viruses. However, it's a rare year he encounters half a dozen of them, and if he can give some town a few years breathing room, than he guesses that's a family or two he's saved. He spends more time on the road traveling to those small towns and more time researching new ways to slow the demons down, to prevent possession, and to kill hellhounds, than he does encountering demons. Then the spring of 2007 comes, and it all goes to hell.

When he learns that Singer in South Dakota's got feelers out for ways to break a deal, he knows someone else has been caught. Some demon somewhere slipped through his vigilance. It feels like a personal failure, as if he's letting his brothers down. But the demons are suddenly everywhere, in a way they never were before. Michael used to say that no one could take responsibility for everything. All you could do was the work in front of you. Gabriel tries to stick to that.

He's not the only hunter with a specialty, but he's the only one anyone's heard of whose specialty is demons. It's not enough to get him a name. Singer doesn't know him well enough for that. But it's enough to give him a general location, somewhere within a day's drive of a ghost town in South Dakota called Cold Oak. After that, it's just a slog through the microfiched back issues of a few county's papers of record with a particular eye to the obits to find likely roads to stake out.

He makes a mental note to send a bottle of whisky Singer's way. Contacts are important, and staying friendly is the way to keep them. He's seen what happens to hunters who go too deep. Hunters don't trust easy as a rule, and they can scent trouble better than a hound can follow a fox. The ones who get too obsessed, who get scary, find they have trouble getting back-up when they need it, or even difficulty finding those kind of breezy conversations over a drink that lead to crucial information getting passed around. Gabriel has worked hard to make sure that he doesn't become one of those guys, at least on the outside.

He makes sure to do the rounds every few months, Bill and Ellen's in Nebraska, the truckstop in Oregon and a few other hunter gathering places to clown around over a couple of beers or a stack of pancakes, greeting the old hands and chatting up the new ones, smile firmly in place. It always pays off eventually. If any of the new hunters felt uneasy on finding out he was "the demon guy," it was because they didn't believe someone with such a friendly smile could actually handle a demon. It helps that he's only 5'8".

It's a cold night in November when he drives out to the likeliest patch of dirt, slowing down when he realizes there's already a car stopped off of the road ahead. It's the right crossroads all right, but the demon's already talking to a mark, a good-looking guy about ten years younger than him, with that desperate trembling mien that always gives civilians away.

Despite the way the cool country air seems to carry the tiniest sound down to the minute rustle of the grass blades, he's too far back to hear the conversation when he parks his car and gets out. It's intense, though, both of the two seemingly too engrossed to notice his approach.

No time to put together a devil's trap. If the demon stays distracted maybe he can get a sigil on her that will prevent her from leaving the body she's in long enough for him to get through an exorcism. He's long since made a tool that will punch a tiny cut through a layer of skin in the right shape. Its only flaw is that using it means getting up close and making contact.

The mark's none too bright. Gabriel watches the expression on his face turn from desperation to cold hard anger, watches him pull a gun that won't be anything more than a flea bite to a demon. It flashes through his head then just how bad this is all going to go. He shouldn't care, should be glad of the demon's diversion, should be shouting out the words of the exorcism right now. Instead he starts running, thinking to get the civilian out of harm's way.

He's not expecting it when the gun goes off and the demon doesn't give a nasty chuckle, but instead keels over dead, engulfed in flashes of crackling light. He skids to a halt in front of the guy, whose hard green eyes are grimly satisfied. "What happened?" is about all Gabriel can choke out.

"She's dead," the younger man answers. "She'll never hurt anyone again." Gabriel can only watch in stunned silence as the guy walks back to his car in complete calm and ease and drives away. For all the guy knows, Gabriel could be a civilian who thinks he just witnessed a murder, yet it's obvious the guy doesn't care. It's a puzzling contrast to his oddly humanizing use of the pronoun she when most hunters refer to demons as its.

That's the first time Gabriel meets Sam Winchester.  


* * *

  
Sam tries to ignore the way Dean keeps looking up from his cheeseburger to glare suspiciously at the diner door every time it opens. It makes Dean nervous now when he knows he's in the same town as other hunters. Gordon Walker had a few too many willing ears bent his way before he died, but Sam just can't ignore request for help with some demon trouble that Rufus passed their way. Not when they're so close. Besides, there's still something inside Sam that has to believe that among hunters, the men and women who've watched him grow up, he'll be given the chance to explain. He may be tainted by demon blood, but he's not a monster. He's not.

Dean just worries too much. He's always worried about Sam, but it's not comforting the way it used to be. It makes Sam's stomach twist now to know that Dean's so focused on him instead of enjoying what could be the last months of his life if they don't break this deal. Dean's right, though, because Sam's only about halfway through his salad when Dean completely freezes up. He cranes his neck around to look and there's Creedy, friend of Kubrick, friend of Gordon, walking down the street past the diner with a vaguely familiar man that Sam can't place. If Creedy looks in the window he'll see them, and Sam's pretty sure that what happens next won't be anything good.

"We should leave town," Dean says. "Looks like the guy got help."

Sam ducks his head and sweeps his hair back out of his eyes. Every self-preservation instinct he's got is telling him to run, but he knows it's not right, not when his newest power can save so many lives. No matter what Dean thinks of it. "We can't," Sam says. He let's his face go soft for a moment, giving Dean the look that always resulted in Sam getting the last of the Lucky Charms when they were kids.

Blessedly, it works. Dean just heaves a disgusted sigh before saying, "yeah, all right." It's not the first time lately that Dean has given in to him. Sam's pretty sure Dean has come to some private decision about not wanting to spend their last few months together fighting. He should feel bad about manipulating Dean, but tells himself it'll all work out. These won't turn out to be Dean's last months, after all, because Sam's going to find a way to save him.  


* * *

  
Gabriel's thrown back against the alley wall, dazed. Stupid, so stupid, to trust Creedy, the idiot, with his back. But he knew he couldn't handle so many demons on his own, and Creedy was the only hunter within a reasonable driving distance. He's frozen in place by some force he can't see, but that's okay, because there's two other hunters there all of a sudden, and four of the demons are coughing up the black smoke that Gabriel knows is their true form. He's stunned when it doesn't fly away, but instead is crushed out of all existence.

The fifth demon goes down hard, blood everywhere, and Gabriel watches with horror as one of the men shivers and sucks the blood off of his fingers, as if he can't stop himself. It's the guy who killed the crossroads demon, and he has no idea what to think. He blinks up at the two men who've just saved his life. Creedy's got his gun out, but so does the blood-licker's companion. This can't end well for anyone.

Gabriel forces himself to stand. "They just saved our lives, Creedy."

"Do you know who this is?" Creedy sneers. "Sam Winchester."

Hunters talk a lot of bullshit, especially when they're drunk. The wendigos they fight are always eight feet tall, the succubi ten times as alluring and the shapeshifters that much more crafty. So Gabriel hasn't paid too much attention to the stirrings he's heard about the Winchester brothers. The younger one who can freeze you in your tracks with a single look, and the older one who can kill you before you even know he's in the room. When you aren't afraid of the bogeyman, he supposes, then you invent a new bogeyman that you are afraid of. What he has noted is that the few hunters whose word he trusts, the ones who aren't just bullshit, always tend to speak up for the Winchesters. Their words aren't exactly effusive, but they're good ones.

Bad things tend to happen around the Winchesters, but Rufus Turner, who's the toughest to please bastard Gabriel's ever met, told him once that the Winchester brothers weren't useless. Ellen Harvelle has said that if she ever needed back-up, the Winchesters would be her first call, and there's a weight behind the way she says it, as if it means even more to her than it sounds.

It's enough for him to make a decision. "They saved our lives," he says again. "Let it go, Creedy. For today."

The idiot doesn't back down. "I ain't saying it's his fault," Creedy says, "but he's got the touch of the devil in him now, and he can't be allowed to run loose."

"He's not a rabid dog."

"He's an abomination." Sam's shamefaced, eyes closed, waiting, not even bothering to defend himself. Gabriel wonders if shooting him might be a kindness. But the guy in the leather jacket, _Dean,_ his lips tighten, and his arm doesn't waver.

Sam Winchester doesn't look like an abomination. He looks like an ordinary guy in his late twenties, and Gabriel's not going to take someone else's word for it that he's not. He remembers a gun going off, and a cold voice saying, "She's dead, and she'll never hurt anyone again," and that's enough to get him to reach out and gently push Creedy's arm down. "Let it go."

"To hell with you all," Creedy spits, and then he's marching out of the alley and away. Gabriel doesn't think he'll be able to ever get his help again.

"Thanks," Dean says. He puts his gun away, but leaves his hand resting awkwardly on the small of his back. Within reaching distance of a hidden knife, Gabriel thinks.

"Gabriel," he says, putting out his hand.

"The demon guy?" Sam's eyes flick open and at Gabriel, something like hope in them. At Gabriel's nod, Dean gets even tenser. "I've heard about you," he says. "The talk is you hate demons."

"Everyone hates demons."

"Yeah, but you hate demons the way Gordon Walker hated vampires, and we all know what happened to him." It's deliberate, Gabriel's sure, that he brings up Gordon. There's a lot of strange rumors around Gordon's death, and more than a few people who think the Winchesters murdered him. Dean's asking a question. _Are you a danger to my brother?_

"In South Dakota, I met S" Sam's eyes flash fearfully toward Dean. Gabriel gets the message. He doesn't want his brother to hear how and when and where they first met. "omeone," he continues smoothly, "who speaks pretty highly of the both of you. Bobby Singer?"

Dean relaxes then, for real. "Bobby's a good guy. You want to grab a beer?"

"I'd better get back to my room at the Restful Trails," he says, looking at Dean, but talking to Sam. He rubs his shoulder where he hit the wall. "If I don't ice this up ASAP, it'll stiffen up on me. Nice to meet you, though."

When he gets back to the motel, he leaves a sprinkle of salt outside the door to mark his room. Not so much that anyone who wasn't looking for it would notice, but enough that Sam could. Later, he's not surprised when the knock on the door comes.

Sam gives him a long searching look before he steps inside. He's cautious. Gabriel gets it. Hard to trust anyone even when the whole world isn't gunning for you, and even when you don't know that any face could hide a demon or a shapeshifter or a ghoul. "You want to do the whole holy water/silver thing?" he asks. "You can."

Sam shakes his head and gets right down to business. "Is it true you know demons better than anyone?"

The ice he got from the machine isn't on his shoulder. It's chilling a couple of beers, and he tosses one to Sam. "Was it you or your brother who made the deal?" he asks.

Sam looks surprised for a moment, then sits down heavily on the bed. "Dean," he says. "He made the deal."

"I'm sorry, but I don't know how to save your brother."

"He did it to save me." He looks down at his hands, the expression on his face almost painfully young. It's hard to believe that only a few hours ago, he was licking blood off of them. He wrinkles his nose in disgust. "It's an addiction. I made a stupid mistake, trusted someone I shouldn't've and now I can't stop. Dean hates it. He " he breaks off like he can't go on. "I don't think I was worth it."

He knows why Sam is telling him this. He's got no one else _to_ tell. It wouldn't be fair to say that to Dean or anyone who was close to him. What Gabriel doesn't understand is why _he's_ listening to Sam. Just that he's never met anyone as compelling as Sam before, but he's not going to think about that.

"It's how I got into hunting," Gabriel tells him. He's never told this story before, not to anyone. But maybe that's because Sam's the first person he's met who'd really understand. "Our mom died, and our dad remarried. New wife, new kid, and three teenage boys who just don't fit into the picture anymore." He takes a long pull from his bottle. "He used our college funds to buy a house. Twenty years we lived in cheap rentals so he and mom could save that money, and it's gone while Michael still has two years to go, and Luke's due to start that fall. He was so angry. He and dad fought about it, and then he and Michael fought some more." Sam raises an eyebrow at him. "Michael thought we should just forgive him. Concentrate on trying to stick together as a family, but Luke couldn't do that."

"What did you want?"

"I wanted them to stop fighting. I thought I did, anyway." It hurts saying it all out loud. "They did after the trust fund was discovered."

"Trust fund?" Gabriel gives him a look. "Oh. The deal."

"Yeah. Suddenly some relative we never heard of dies, and there's enough money to take all three of us through grad school if we want, and best of all, Dad can't touch a penny."

"And you didn't know a thing about it?"

"Not until ten years later. Near as I've been able to figure, Luke made the deal. Michael got wind of it all and tried to get between Luke and a hellhound." He doesn't bother to tell Sam about the demons over the years who have taunted him with it. That Michael was smart enough or brave enough or just a plain better brother enough to be there when they came for Luke while Gabriel was two thousand miles away taking the GREs in despicable ignorance. Sam will learn that himself, how cruel demons can be, if he keeps hunting after Dean goes.

Sam gets a funny look on his face. "What'd you study?" The corner of Gabriel's mouth quirks up. "Norse mythology." It shouldn't be funny, but it is. In that moment, anyway. His brother selling his soul for something as stupid as Norse mythology.

"Oh, you had big career plans, I see."

Gabriel laughs. It hurts, but in a good way, and he wonders vaguely how many years now he's been wanting someone to tell. "Let me get you another." He reaches out to take Sam's empty and their fingers brush, a spark of static electricity jumping between them. Maybe a spark of something more. Their fingers linger against each other. He doesn't let himself have this often, and never with a hunter before. There's just something different about Sam.

He doesn't know which of them leans in first, but the kiss is so good it almost hurts. When they break apart, Sam tips his head and rests his forehead against Gabriel's, breathing harshly. Maybe it's been awhile for Sam, too. "Is your brother going to be missing you?" Gabriel asks.

"He's, uh, he's crossing identical twins off of his list. I think he's gone for the night." Sam laughs, but it's not quite right and it ends in a choked gasp, like he's got a sudden lump in his throat. "You sure you want to do this? It's true, you know, what they say. I am an "

Gabriel cuts him off. "You're human, Sam. Just like the rest of us." He pulls him down onto the bed, manhandling Sam against the mattress. Sam goes easily, willingly for someone so large, and isn't that the biggest turn-on. No. The biggest turn-on is this, Sam underneath him, eyes darkened with arousal, vulnerable-looking, letting Gabriel do whatever he wants. "They're so scared of you," he says. "How can anyone be scared of you?"

When they come together, it feels like being whole again for the first time since his brothers died.

He knows Sam's not going to spend the night, but he makes sure to kiss Sam thoroughly before he lets him get up, memorizing his taste. He wants to remember this. Gabriel brushes the hair back from Sam's eyes and saves the mental picture of him at peace like this, flushed and rumpled-looking and content. He's never felt this close to someone else before in all of his life. He's scared that Sam might feel the same way.

Sam redresses with fumbling hesitance. "I know you usually work alone, but Dean and I could really use someone who knows demons like you do."

Gabriel can almost see it in his mind's eye, what it'd be like to be part of a partnership, to have someone else on the planet really care what happens to him. But it's a pipe dream. He can't afford to let anyone get close to him like that again, can't afford the cost to his heart to risk caring enough when he knows how fragile life is, how easy it is to lose people. "Didn't anyone ever tell you, Sam? Hunters don't make friends. Hunters make contacts."

"Yeah," Sam says softly.

"Go back to your brother," Gabriel advises him. "If I had known what was coming down the road, I would have spent every minute I could with mine."

"I get it, okay? I understand."

Gabriel watches Sam walk out the door.

It's a decision he regrets a year later when he hears that Sam Winchester has raised Lucifer to bring hell on Earth, what everyone supposes is payment for Dean Winchester coming back from the dead.  


* * *

  
"I'm just going to grab some clean bandages out of the trunk, relax," Dean says. Then there's the roar of the Impala, and he's gone.

In a minute, Sam will go back inside. It'll come to him then, some way to fix all this. But right now in this minute, all he can do is stand there staring down the road.

Alone.  


* * *

  
Gabriel tells himself that Sam Winchester doesn't mean anything to him, that he doesn't feel a tug every time he hears someone breathe the name Winchester. He's mostly forgotten Sam.

It works. Sort of. Until the day he hears that Roy Disney is trying to gather a posse to find a way to kill Sam, swearing up and down that he and Walt had already fatally shot the Winchester brothers once. Or so he'd thought until Dean had come blazing into their hotel room last week, killing Walt and winging Roy. Now Roy was running scared, babbling about demons and angels and the apocalypse. That's when he knows he hasn't forgotten anything at all, because right in that moment, he wants to bash Roy Disney's head in and anyone else who's ever thought about harming Sam Winchester. How dare anyone think of touching his Sam.

There's a picture he carries with him in his wallet of his family before his mom died. It's the only thing he has left from the life he used to lead. He hadn't told Sam the full story. He hadn't told Sam how his father lost his job, how the house had been foreclosed on, how his stepmom had taken off with his baby sister. How his father had drank himself to sleep every night for weeks after until he finally wrapped his car around a utility pole. Luke looks so young and innocent in the photo he keeps. But it gnaws at Gabriel sometimes, the wondering. Was the rest of it part of the deal, too, or just a coincidence? Could his brother have been that cruel?

What if he had been? Does it make him any less the brother that Gabriel misses with all his soul? No, the real what if is what Gabriel would do if he could go back in time and change it all.

It's too late for his family. They're gone. But Sam isn't, and Gabriel's not going to wait until it's too late for yet another person he cares about. Isn't it at least worth a try?

Gabriel catches up with Sam Winchester in Minnesota, trying to wrestle a dollar into a vending machine. "Fucking perfect," Sam yells when Gabriel walks up to him. He slams his fist into the machine, before slumping against it. "Not you, too," he says. "Not you." He closes his eyes. Gabriel can read despair into every line of his body. "Just get it over with," Sam says. "Shoot me or whatever. It's not like it matters now that Dean's gone to say yes."

Gabriel takes the dollar from Sam's unresisting hand and smoothes out the wrinkles until if feeds easy into the machine. "I didn't come to kill you," he says. "I came to help." He points to the machine. "Which button?"

Sam opens his eyes in disbelief, then suddenly he's grabbing Gabriel, hugging him fiercely and kissing him hard. "You don't know how messed up everything is," he murmurs.

"It doesn't matter. You can't take responsibility for the whole world, Sam. Just do the work that's in front of you. That's all anyone can do. Your brother's run off? Let's go get him."

"We need to pick up Castiel first. And get him some sunglasses."

"Castiel?"

"Our angel. He's kind of hung over."

"Drinking demon blood, raising the devil, plying angels with alcohol. You're a dangerous man, Sam Winchester."

"I am not taking blame for that last one. He did that on his own. I had nothing to do with it."

"Sure, sure."

Sam tipped his head down to look at Gabriel. "About Lucifer ..."

Gabriel waved his hand. "Don't explain. I like having the freedom to throw it in your face whenever you're mad at me." He imitated the tone of their future fights. "Oh, yeah? Well, at least I didn't start the apocalypse." His voice grows more serious. "Anyway, I'm not letting anyone who's not me kill you."

Sam laughs. "And you're the one who had the normal childhood."

"So normal my brother sold his soul to a demon."

"Older brothers." Sam shakes his head. "What do you expect?"

"It does seem to be a theme with them." Gabriel wraps his arm around him possessively. "Let's go find yours."

The End

**Author's Note:**

> Rated for violence, non-explicit sex


End file.
